James McLurkin\u00a0isn’t the most polished of presenters, but he is extremely interesting.\u00a0\u00a0In a plug for SolidWorks, McLurkin\u00a0stated, “I’m not just a SolidWorks speaker.\u00a0 I’m also a client.”\u00a0 He is an engineer and roboticist\u00a0specializing in swarm robotics.\u00a0 He demonstrated his swarm of little micelike\u00a0robots at SolidWorks World this year.\u00a0 He\u00a0talked about how they move round within the group, including\u00a0comments\u00a0about communication limitations between\u00a0of a swarm.\u00a0 Though his technology and research may one day lead to the great robot revolution, he stated that will not likely occur in our time.\u00a0 “Only a handful of robots can open a door, and none if you have to pull [it open].”\u00a0 He gleefully added, “If the robot revolution happened tomorrow, you’d be perfectly safe just by closing your door.”\u00a0 I still say the robot revolution will one day come, and I welcome our future metallic overlords (once they are in power, of course).<\/p>\n
McLurkin\u00a0talked for some time about “Nerd Pride” and extolled\u00a0engineers to release\u00a0their nerd to the world.\u00a0 This can be\u00a0done in a number of ways, such as giving nerdy gifts, voting for education candidates, helping out schools and related projects, teaching, etc.<\/p>\n
At the press conference that followed, McLurkin\u00a0was asked\u00a0about the value of simulation versus real world.\u00a0 He answered, “the problem with simulation is that you can only test what you put in.”\u00a0 He also talked about the difference of\u00a0biological inspiration\u00a0and biological mimicry.\u00a0 To him, biological inspiration is understanding\u00a0and applying how nature works; biological mimicry\u00a0is\u00a0simply\u00a0copying a successful system within nature.\u00a0 Though I understand his general point, I do not think he fully made clear any meaningful distinction as they would both seem to be interrelated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"